The water tower was added to enclose a steel tank the size of the tower to hold water. The color of the brick didn’t match the color of the bricks below because it was added after the original structure was built.  Wegee made sure that the bricks showed the different colors.

It cost the company about $15,000 per year to heat the water in the winter months. The tank was added to hold the water needed for a new sprinkler system. This was one of the first five such systems in 1904.  The sprinkler system used gravity from the tank to supply the sprinklers which was much more efficient than the fire trucks of that day.

The little white house at the end of the street wasn’t there when Wegee surveyed the plant site.  An Interstate 40 overpass has replaced it.  So Wegee found a picture of the house from an old photograph and completed this picture as it looked in 1911.

© 1998 David A. Weigant    Printed in U.S.A.

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